Many leaders have grown jaded over the past 20 years in their search for a measurable way to accelerate performance. We often hear such complaints from executives who’ve worked with their umpteenth consultant, tried again the Next Big Thing in organizational theory, heard their 100th motivational speaker, and just finished the latest of the 35,000 new management books published annually.

But investigation into this frustration revealed that sometimes the staying power of ancient methods exceeds that of the flavor of the month theories.

Those who have learned of samurai principles, however, use ancient leadership techniques rather than following the latest fashionable trends in management theory. When Apple helped our colleague Kamran Loghman research innovation and creativity methods, a by-product was the application of Samurai principles.

The ancient samurai ideas have been proven to be substantial and effective. These ancient techniques may surprise you with their relevance in today’s business world. Many executives find that they simply deal more authentically with real organizational issues than pop theories do.

The samurai warrior functions as an excellent metaphor for leaders throughout the millennia.

Unlike some other great leaders and leadership methodologies, the samurai system was well-documented and they were able to survive as an organization for a very long time. Until they were overwhelmed by technology and Western influence, they were able to repel every invader with their timeless, culture-crossing techniques.

As a leader in your organization, consider the following ancient leadership truths. Implementing them could help you lead organizational change, develop strategy, and create and manage great teams.

Death

Weak management teams are those that are not taught how to “die” properly. You needn’t literally commit suicide or start taking out your colleagues in the name of organizational improvement, but consider this: Some who’ve lived through a heart attack or other serious illness no longer invest their energies in office politics when they recover.

Just the prospect of physical death is transformative, pulling back a curtain to bring attention to what truly matters. Everything unimportant falls away. In modern management, when people have been taught to “die” properly, they execute their work more bravely and are less consumed by the distractions of political infighting and other typical cultural implosions.

To train your managers for death, you must all first look at the ugly realities of your culture. What is not being said? What is it in your organization that needs to die in order for it to move forward?

Together, the group must bring into the open whatever is old and dysfunctional: misbehavior, pet projects, turf wars, hidden agendas, backstabbing, and so forth. With the ugly stuff exposed the journey can begin to find out how committed the group is to commit suicide to those ego-driven agendas and create a new destination.

Bravery

Bravery is essential, not only on the battlefield, but also in communication. A lot of training and coaching fails to challenge executives on this idea; as such, many fail, even losing the company, because their people withhold difficult truths or spin reality for the boss’ sake. By the time the CEO gets crucial information, it may have been so politically sanitized that there’s no content left, and no one’s brave enough to stand up and say, “No, here’s what’s really going on.”

Weak CEOs might even fire or threaten those who bravely stand up and speak the truth if it doesn’t line up with what they want to hear, thereby creating an environment that perpetuates weakness.

Good CEOs, however, want to know, because even if they don’t like hearing the truth, they know it’s more dangerous not to know, so they seek out those people who will give them straight answers.

If you lead by example, you should be able to instill bravery in your people by admitting what you don’t know and encouraging your people to support you. Let them know that you expect the truth and reward those who exhibit bravery by taking risks. After awhile, when people see that there are no ill consequences for saying something that would have remained unspoken before, they become braver and more accountable.

Honor

Few CEOs evaluate a candidate’s capacity for honor when they hire, but they should. If integrity is not fostered, dishonor can flourish in an organization’s culture, ending with subpoenas, handcuffs, bankruptcies, and furious stockholders. Dishonor prevails when leadership shuts people down instead of making them accountable for policies, or micromanages instead of leading an empowered, open, and honest culture.

When leaders who lack integrity get data back that shows they’re not leading well, the honorable reaction of “What do I have to do to change and get better?” is rare. Instead, a leader without honor will question the data or the data takers, too out of touch to realize that he or she is the problem. When leaders set a dishonorable example, it isn’t long before their people start seeing that and a single bad idea begins to affect the entire executive team. From Watergate to WorldCom, there are too many modern examples of what happens when leaders create an environment that lacks honor.

Leaders who embrace the ancient samurai truth of honor live their values, not confining them to a coffee cup slogan or the company brochure. And if those values are violated, their sense of dishonor leads them to either leave the organization or take action to fix the problem. They simply do what they say and say what they do.

Follow the way of the warrior to business success

These ancient samurai truths are much more than merely good ideas that worked for warriors centuries ago. Although today we know that the truths have a substantial scientific basis in anthropology and evolutionary genetics, these arts were lost because our culture’s beliefs and physics changed with time.

But an ever-deeper exploration of the history of humanity teaches us that some truths are unchanging. And, bottom line, organizations that adopt the samurai techniques see their leadership development and their culture changes go from a 70-100% failure rate to an over 90% success rate.